DREAM: We Let the Damned Thing In

     We’d thought the floods were bad, but they were just the beginning. We traipsed through the mud for days, pulling out random objects as we came upon them. The mud pulled back, and, depending who was stronger, or perhaps who wanted it more, our precious belongings were released with a loud sucking smack, back into our possession. We gathered, and we thought about rebuilding, but…

     Who’s in charge here?

     I am.

     Is there anyone better?

     That rubs me the wrong way. He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know what I’m capable of accomplishing. What’s the point of asking for somebody better? To insult me? To doubt me? To anger me?

     I’m all you got.

     I would have shrugged and left it at that if not for the scene behind his silhouette. Four black spires twisting on the horizon, connecting cloud to earth.

     Into the house we race. The big ones are carrying the little ones when they trip and fall. Some are shouting, some are crying, and all are hoping the wickedness lifts itself up and passes us by without a glance. Of course, none of us believes that will happen. We know all too well we are not immune to tragedy. So into the house we go, and as far down as we can get to escape the curling, creeping fingers of destruction.

     Destruction comes in many forms, though, and he stands silently in the corner while we pray for safety. He lurks in the darkness of a dank and dirty basement and leers at the unsuspecting children, counting potential corpses.

Like a Bear in a Cave

The weatherman promised tornadoes, but there were only blue, sunshiney skies and spinning pinwheels. Knowing how quickly the weather can change, I hunkered down on the couch and watched the entire second season of Game of Thrones with the lights off and the doors and windows closed.

I probably should have been washing the dishes or scrubbing the toilet, but I was removing myself from those tasks because it was supposed to be a bad weather day. I was already making excuses in my head. It's pointless to clean if you know a tornado will just mess it up again.

Elsewhere in the world, a socially awkward, stuttering teenager plunged a knife into two of his brothers' tiny bodies, a tired old bridge decided it just couldn't make it through another day and flung a few cars into the depths of the Skagit River, and somebody named Robert Pattinson moved out of his girlfriend's house...again.

Some of those thing concerned me more than others, but I was busy awaiting a storm that never happened. The weatherman cancelled his plans early in the evening. I could practically hear the cheers on Facebook. Apparently, some of these fools who live here think you can predict such things. They must not be native.



I surveyed my Emergency Preparedness Kit (a charged cellphone, a bowl of popcorn, and an unopened bottle of delicious rum). I turned up the volume on the TV when the wind kicked up. Those spinning pinwheels can be noisy.

(Highly unlikely.)